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The Catalyst: The Swain Library Newsletter

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March 1998

Contents

1. Recently Acquired Electronic Resources
2. Missing Journals and Books
3. Searching Stanford’s Web Databases When You Are Off Campus
4. In Press — Search Tips on How to Find Out if a Journal Article is Published
5. Searching the Protein Databank File: Preferred Web Site

Recently Acquired Electronic Resources

Comprehensive organic transformations on CD-ROM: a guide to functional group preparations / Richard C. Larock. New York: Wiley-VCH, c1997.

Summary:

Based on the book of the same title, presents a searchable reference containing about 15,000 organic transformations and more than 23,000 references organized according to class of functional group synthesized.

Location:

CD-ROM on Reserve; check out and use on workstation in the Swain Library Reference Room

Alchemy 2000 and associated modules (SciLogP, SciPolymer, SciProtein, SciQSAR). St. Louis, MO: Tripos, c1996.

Summary:

Computational chemistry program that can build molecules (2D and 3D); optimize the geometry of molecules; compute point charges for the molecule by semi-empirical methods; determine bond distance, bond angles and torsion angles; determine a variety of parameters that describe the molecule; run batch mode calculations; display graphics; export data to an Excel file; and print each compound on a separate page with appropriate annotation. Includes four auxilliary programs: SciQSAR, SciProtein, SciPolymer, and SciLogP.

Location:

Everything is loaded on the hard disk of the PC workstation in Swain’s book reading area.

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (full-text)
http://www.pnas.org/

Wall Street Journal (full-text)
http://www.wsj.com/

Missing Journals and Books

Because issues were consistently being removed, Angewandte Chemie was placed on closed stacks reserve. While this has eliminated the theft of issues, this title is no longer available to after hours users. Approximately half of the current issues of Chemical and Engineering News are disappearing from our display shelves. If this continues, this title will also have to be placed on reserve.

I’m unhappy to report that the problem is not limited to journals. The number of books not in the stacks and not checked out has grown during the past 6 months. Below is a list of some of the missing titles along with the amount of money it’s going to cost to replace them. The total cost of the items below is $1,496.70 — money that could have been used to acquire newly published items.

If you have removed materials from the Library without checking them out, please return them. Removing materials is disrespectful to colleagues and violates the Fundamental Code of Conduct which could result in explusion. As you can see, it is very expensive for the Library to replace materials. And increasingly, items are no longer still in print. Swain is one of the few Libraries on campus that provides after-hours access to its users. If the number of materials disappearing continues at this rate, after hours access will need to be revisited and perhaps eliminated.

Author	Title	Imprint	Series	Price
	Adsorption and catalysis on oxide surfaces	Amsterdam; New York: Elsevier Science Pub. Co., 1985.	Studies in surface science and catalysis; 21	$235.75
Banwell, C.N.	Fundamentals of Molecular Spectroscopy	Mcgraw Hill Book Company, 1994.		$62.95
Bols, Mikael	Carbohydrate building blocks	New York, NY: J. Wiley, c1996.		$49.95
Brinker, C. Jeffrey	Sol-Gel Science	Academic Press Order Fulfillment, 1990.		$201.00
	The chemistry and pharmacology of Taxol and its derivatives	Amsterdam; New York: Elsevier, 1995.		$227.25
	Dynamic light scattering: the method and some applications	Oxford [England]: Clarendon Press; New York: Oxford University Press, 1993.		$185.00
Fleming, Ian	Frontier Orbitals & Organic Chemical Reactions	Wiley, John & Sons, Inc., 1976.		$44.95
Hassner, Alfred	Organic syntheses based on name reactions and unnamed reactions	Oxford [England]; New York: Pergamon Press, 1994.		$50.00
Herron, J. Dudley (James Dudley)	The chemistry classroom: formulas for successful teaching	Washington, DC: American Chemical Society, 1996.		$49.95
Ladik, Jâanos J.	Quantum theory of polymers as solids	New York: Plenum Press, c1988.		$95.00
Oldham, Keith B.	Fundamentals of electrochemical science	San Diego: Academic Press, c1994.		$56.00
Probstein, Ronald F.	Physicochemical hydrodynamics: an introduction	2nd ed. New York: John Wiley & Sons, c1994.		$75.95
Sainsbury, Malcolm	Aromatic chemistry	Oxford; New York: Oxford University Press, 1992.		$11.95
Shaw, Duncan J.	Introduction to colloid and surface chemistry	3d ed. London; Boston: Butterworths, 1980.		Ordered 4th ed. for $56.00
A. Dedieu, editor	Transition metal hydrides	New York, N.Y.: VCH Pub., c1992.		$95.00

Searching Stanford’s Web Databases When You Are Off Campus

Using proxy authentication services that have recently become available for the campus, it is now possible to access web-based databases such as SciSearch when you are off campus (including out of town or the country).

Proxy authentication enables you to identify yourself as a Stanford student, faculty, or staff, so you can access databases that are limited to the Stanford community. However because work is still underway, not all of the Library’s web pages are configured yet to work with the proxy authentication (e.g. electronic journals).

To search a web-based database, you must go to the “Catalogs and Databases” section of the Stanford University Library’s/Academic Information Resources web pages and choose “ALL” files. The URL is http://searchworks.stanford.edu/?f[format][]=Database. Scroll down to the web database you want to search and click on the title. A dialog box will open up asking you to input your Stanford User Name and ID. After inputting this information you will be connected to the database.

In Press – Search Tips on How to Find Out if a Journal Article is Published

Trying to find out if your “In Press” citations were published? Here’s some methods you can use.

Search the Web Pages of the Publishers

Many publishers now put table of contents information for current and forthcoming articles on their web site. Faxon, a major serials supplier, has a link to many journal publishers web pages (go to http://www.faxon.com/html/infotitl.html).

Search CARL UnCover

Because UnCover enters citations for new journals within a day of receipt, it is useful to search newly published articles. The URL is http://uncweb.carl.org:80/cgi-bin/unCover. Search tips: only the first three authors are entered into this database. Does not include abstracts and it omits some core titles. Despite these drawbacks it is a free source and quick way to see if an item is published or not.

Search SciSearch

After UnCover, SciSearch is the next fastest source to get citations listed after an item is published. (Most citations are in the database 2–3 weeks after an item is published.)
Because search engines at publishers sites and at UnCover are less sophisticated than SciSearch, I recommend first doing a combination search that includes the first author, a unique word or phrase from the title, and a word from the journal or source name.
If this search has zero results, then search only the journal name and rank results by date in order to see which issue is the latest one included in the database. You can then browse only the more recent issues in UnCover or on the publishers’ web site.

Search a Subject-Specific Database

If the journal is not covered in SciSearch, then search a database that covers that subject area in more depth, e.g. Chemical Abstracts Online for chemistry, INSPEC for physics, BIOSIS for biology, EI/Compendex for Chemical Engineering, Biotechnology Abstracts for biotechnology articles, etc. While the lag time between publication and when an item appears in one of these files is longer (e.g 4–8 weeks), the number and kinds of publications is more diverse.

Consult a Librarian

Contact Grace Baysinger (graceb@stanford.edu) if you need help or would like her to search an unfamiliar file for you.

Searching the Protein Databank File: Preferred Web Site

The PDB is available at many different web locations. The U.S. National Institute of Health has made it available for free. Called “Molecules R Us,” this version is easy to search and results can be displayed in a variety of formats, including PDF. The URL is http://molbio.info.nih.gov/cgi-bin/pdb

Grace Baysinger
Head Librarian & Bibliographer, Swain Library of Chemistry & Chemical Engineering
URL: http://library.stanford.edu/depts/swain/index.html
Head, Science and Engineering Libraries Resource Group